Being mystified and telling tales that are myths are among the reasons why one becomes an avid sports fan and among the incidents in sports that create mystic and mythology are comebacks.
We once featured how the Boston Red Sox and San Miguel Beer came back for 0-4 series deficits before. Here is another one that might rival their resiliency to the clutches of defeat.
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If you are an avid sports fan and not familiar with American football, you should at least know how it is being scored because of this one: the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history by the New England Patriots.
As general sports fans in this side of the world, we are not yet familiar with this sport but technology allows us access to the entirety of this game. If you have not yet seen, much less heard of this game, I suggest you search for and watch it. Even its highlights will be worth your spending of time and effort.
The determination of the supreme football team of each year in the National Football league (NFL) is unlike the NBA or PBA. While they are similar in the sense that they have regular season and playoffs, the playoffs series are different because they are in the form of knockout matches.
The determination of the top seeds still lie on the teams’ regular season standings. But once the playoffs starts, determination of which team will advance is just decided by a single game, win-or-go home match.
Last February 5, 2017 at Houston, Texas, the Patriots racked 31 unanswered points in the second half of the championship game for a thrilling comeback to bag their fifth championship and bolster their claim of greatest NFL franchise of the 21st century so far.
This championship game was supposed to be a matchup of two high-powered offenses, and the Patriots’ defense was pegged better than that of their counterparts, the Atlanta Falcons.
The Patriots seem to wake up on the wrong side of the bed during the start of this game and was in a perfect bad luck combination moment in the first three quarters of the match. They cannot get their offense going and their defense cannot stop the Atlanta Falcons charge.
After a scoreless first quarter, the Patriots suddenly find themselves quickly down 21-3 at halftime, their only points coming from a 41-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski.
The Falcons exhibited signs of not letting up by driving which eventually resulted to a touchdown off a pass to establish their biggest lead at 25, 28-3, 8:31 in the third.
That should be the dagger to the heart! Almost everyone thought this one should be all over except for the shouting. They of little faith!
It took six and a half minutes for the Patriots to make the scoreboard move by a James White 5-yard touchdown off a Tom Brady pass for six points. No extra points were awarded as Gostkowski’s kick swerves to the right. Patriots still in a black hole, 9-28, end of the third.
After an unsuccessful Falcons possession, the Patriots took over and reach the Falcons’ 7-yard line on pass completions, but Grady Jarrett sacked Brady on two of the next three plays, forcing the Pats to settle for a 33-yard Gostkowski field goal. Patriots starting to comeback from the dead, 12-28, 9:44.
Then they forced Atlanta’s Matt Ryan to a fumble and took over possession of the ball at their 25-yard line at the 8:22 mark.
In their offensive play, Tom Brady found Malcolm Mitchell to advance, then hit Danny Amendola for a 6-yard touchdown pass. LeGarrette Blount then plowed his way into the end zone for the two-point conversion.
The Patriots now definitely breathing again, just trailing, 28-20, with still 5:56 left to play, fourth quarter. All of a sudden, the miracle might come true.
Atlanta almost sealed the game outcome with two magnificent catches by Devonta Freeman and Julio Jones but a sack, and an incomplete pass forced Atlanta to punt, giving the Patriots possession for a chance to tie the game.
As if the previous sequences aren’t worthy enough to be remembered, a lasting photographic memory occurred. After Brady completed a two passes, his third was deflected up in the air and Julian Edelman along with three Falcons disputed possession of the ball.
Description by words may not be enough to appreciate the catch. Let’s just say that the catch Julian Edelman made to pick 23 yards is extremely difficult to recreate, even by professional actors. The two earlier catches made by Atlanta were nowhere near the beauty of this one. It could arguably end up as the most incredible catch in football history.
White and Amendola then took over to knot the score. White completed two passes and ran for a touchdown while Amendola completed the two-point pass to send the Super Bowl to its first overtime in history.
The Patriots won the coin toss and elected to receive the ball. They managed to get to the Falcon’s 2-yard line and White took a pitch and ran the ball. The surrounding Falcon defenders prepare to clobber him at the 1-yard line but he managed to stretch forward and get the ball across the goal line before his knee hit the ground to score the walk-off touchdown. Patriots complete the 34–28 victory and the greatest Super Bowl comeback.
The Patriots performance broke the record for the largest deficit overturned to win the Super Bowl at ten points set by the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XXII and matched by the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV and the Patriots themselves in Super Bowl XLIX.
This is also the third-largest comeback win in NFL playoff history, behind the 32-point deficit overcame by Buffalo Bills during the 1992-93 AFC Wild Card trailed where they 3-35 and eventually won 41–38 and 28-point deficit overcame by the Indianapolis Colts and the Kansas City Chiefs during the 2013–14 NFL playoffs. The Colts trailed 10-38 and eventually won 45–44 in that Wild Card game.
In addition, the patriots also reset the record for the largest fourth quarter comeback in NFL playoff history to 19. That was the deficit the Patriots were facing at the start of the fourth quarter by a score of 28–9. A total of 127 teams were previously down by 17 or more points entering the final quarter and all of them failed to record a single win.
By: ARMANDO BOLISLIS
